Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/352

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ART UNION.

—indicate a quiet earnestness and force of purpose, of a kind such as has never before been displayed on any public question. The destination of the large pecuniary proceeds of this—enterprise to the carrying on of that business of agitation in which its promoters have attained so exemplary a proficiency—is a consideration scarcely worth adverting to as an element of its political importance. Mere agitation, conducted with whatever talent, or sustained by whatever amount of money powers is not, in this country, by any means so formidable an agent of social and political change as many persons imagine. Here is the true 'agi tation'—that which gives reality and potency to those external efforts to. which the name is commonly restricted—in the settled purpose and conviction of the multitudes of whose zeal, union, and working power the Covent Garden Bazaar is the embodiment. The spirit which has animated all this mass of sustained and concentrated exertion is a spirit which no opposition can subdue, no failure dishearten, and no delay tire out. The writers and speakers of the League have laid much stress on the significance of this spectacle as an exposition of our national industry, and a practical appeal to society against the impolicy and injustice of laws that narrow the market of that industry, and abridge its earnings. It amply deserves to be thus characterised, and cannot fail of having, to a large extent, the intended effect on public opinion. If, during the first few days of the exhibition, there seemed something for a hypercriticism to object to on this head, in the predominance of those lighter wares which represent only the industry of the boudoir, the criticism has long since become inapplicable. From day to day the Bazaar has increasingly assumed its higher and more interesting character, as a display of the resources and capabilities of British industry."

From the Art Union:

"Although it was the leading intention of the late Exhibition at Covent Garden Theatre—which opened on the 12th and closed on the 27th of May to obtain a large sum of money to advance the object of the Anti-Corn-Law League, there can be no doubt that it has answered a purpose far more important and universal; for it has gone a long way to make the public acquainted with the capabilities of British commercial art—if so we may term that class of art which has immediate reference to trade. No circumstance has ever occurred in this country so directly tending to 'augment the Mercantile Value of the Fine Arts.' The occasion not only brought to London a large mass of wealthy and influential individuals—influential, as, in a great degree, guiding the tastes of hundreds of thousands of persons—but it brought them into intimate connexion with those whose opinions ought to have weight with the producers of manufactured articles; while, therefore, on the